66 flowers was not known, and Mr. Baring-Gould's While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, For the rest, and to refer to one writer only out of many, Mr. Friend quotes references to the custom from Baxter, Gay, Herrick, and other English writers, known and unknown, besides those from whom he quotes references to the allied custom of carrying flowers at funerals. C. C. B. A MOTTO FOR THEATRICAL MANAGERS (8th S. iii. 106).—MR. W. WRIGHT is, I think, rather unfortunate in citing Dr. Johnson's sentence. First, the passage, through careless construction, does not express what its author intended. "The stream of Time......passes without injury by the adamant of Shakspere." How a stream could be injured I fail to understand; if it was a pellucid rivulet its waters might run drumlie from the falling débris of the "dissoluble fabrics"; but what had it to fear from the polished adamant of Shakespeare? For alliterative effect MR. WRIGHT introduces three words which I fail to find pertinent to the paragraph. Poetic: whatever were the literary gifts and the conversational powers of the great lexicographer, he certainly was not endowed with the genius of poetry; and the spectacle of this sweeping stream cleansing and crumbling its riparian structures is not poetic. Pathetic: the solitary mass of adamant, forlorn and unskaken amidst the tumble of a thousand edifices, proudly cognizant of hurting the stream beneath, but magnanimously refraining, may be pathos. Then prophetic: what is there vaticinal in the passage? It foretells nothing-it was not hard to prophesy on such a theme. With infinitely less ground to work on Mr. Baxter has told wonderful things. But why should a theatrical manager require such a motto? Shakespeare has unluckily spelt ruin to many a dramatic caterer, and I am afraid the parade of Dr. Johnson's cumbrous and verbose paragraph would scarcely help him. If he needs must have a quotation, a thousand simpler and more beautiful may be culled from the works of our greatest poets and prose writers, or, better still, from that golden " thesaurus Shakespeare's own works, where almost every conceivable thought and experience in human history has found expression. W. A. HENDERSON. Dublin. TENNYSON'S CROSSING THE BAR' (8th S. ii. 446; iii. 137, 178).-I was much surprised to read MR. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON's remarks on the similarity of the Charge of the Light Brigade' to Michael Drayton's Battle of Agincourt,' as I thought the similarity was as well known to students of Tennyson's poems as the source whence the late Laureate derived the metre of 'In Memoriam,' to wit, Lord Herbert of Cherbury's 'Ode upon a Question moved whether Love should continue for Ever.' I remember that the similarity W. E. Mullins, in 'Simple Poems," "English was pointed out at least so early as 1874 by Mr. School Classics," Rivingtons. F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY. It does not seem to have occurred to the admirers of the late Laureate's charming poem that his reference to the Pilot, I hope to see my Pilot face to face is a metaphor sufficiently clouded to justify the differences of opinion which it has challenged. Sir Edwin Arnold, for instance, interprets the idea thus: Death's soft wing all thy gallant canvas lifting, And Christ thy Pilot to the Peace to be. C., observed in a contemporary," The allusion is to Some time back a writer, who signed himself the son who had preceded him (Lord Tennyson)iat the undiscovered country three years previously. Surely this cannot be so! Does not C. confound the Pilot (man) with the pilot (fish), which is always in advance of its huge friend the shark? A pilot is one who takes charge of a ship, to conduct it through perilous waters into safe soundings. When the bar is crossed, the open ocean is, perhaps, reached certainly this is the idea intended in Tennyson's metaphor-and then, the pilot, having done his work, would take his leave, and return to the shore. Consequently, not to meet your pilot until the bar is crossed is actually to invert the truth. fine story, 'A Sea Queen' (ed. 1889, p. 50), in the This same metaphor is found in Clark Russell's following touching passage :— whom I had not met before, a short, square, brown-faced "When young Joe Patten died,' said one of the captains, man with bright, intelligent eyes, that Joe Patten, I mean, whose father owned the old Venus; William Morris, who was a bit of a poet in his way, says to me, "Well, poor young Joe's gone. He took five days dying, and he said to me the day afore his death, William, the coast's hove-up and 's as plain in sight as a spiritual says he, when a man draws near the other world-when shadow can be, my belief is that God A'mighty sends an ་ angel aboard him to pilot him in. That's just the fancy I have,' he says. There's a strong hand steering me, William, and although I know no more than that I'm bound for a new life, yet I feel to be so well handled; all's so calm and steady within me, mate, that, so far from being afraid. I wouldn't take twenty years more of life in exchange for the happiness that's now in me.' William Morris,' continued the skipper, may have invented this, or it may be young Joe Patten's very words. I think it's true; and I'll tell 'ee why. The hardest part of death is being alone. Friends may be crying round ye, and holding your hands, but still ye're alone. But my notion is, th' A'mighty 's too good to let a man drift out of this world like a derelict, no one aboard. And so, as we can't ship human friends for the last voyage, what more natural than that th' A'mighty should put an angel aboard us, as young Joe Patten said, a sort of pilot to keep us company and cheer us up, and navigate us truly? If nothing of that kind takes place, how do ye account for men dying smiling, as if they'd been having a pleasant talk with a shipmate up to the last moment?""" This is a sailor's, and a sailor writer's, rendering of an image which, I would submit, is so obscured in Lord Tennyson's poem as to be difficult of interpretation. P. X. "HOSPITALE CONVERSORUM ET PUERORUM" (8th S. iii. 209).-The 'Diocesan History of Oxon.' (S.P.C.K.) has (p. 42):— "Henry III. had already built a house for the converts from Judaism in London, in which they might live together under rule, and might be maintained for the remainder of their lives without the necessity of practising usury, as they had done before. And he now pro-ceeded to found a similar institution in Oxford, with an especial regard to the wants of those who were either strangers or infirm.* This is the more worthy of notice in a history of the diocese as, besides the one mentioned as existing in London, and another at Bermondsey, no other place of refuge of a similar kind is known to have been established.t" The accounts of the Domus Conversorum are preserved in the Record Office. From these I extracted the following: "To all to whom, &c. We have inspected the letters patent of our most dear lord and father, Henry, late King of England, to this intent: Henry by the grace of God, King of England, of France, and lord of Ireland, to all to whom, &c., Know ye that of our special grace we have granted to our said adopted son, Henry Wodestok, and to his sons Martin and Peter, Jews lately converted to the Catholic faith, that is to say, to all of them one penny and one halfpenny a day, to be received at the Hospital of the Converts by the hands of the clerk of the rolls for the time being for the term of their lives, in the manner in which they were formerly wont to receive. In testimony whereof we have made these our letters patents. Witness myself at Westminster on the tenth day of November, in the fourteenth year of our reign.' Mat. Par., p. 393, ad A.D. 1233, Lon., 1640; Wood, Hist. et Ant. Univ. Oxon.,' tom. i. p. 132, Ox., 1668. A print of the 'Domus Conversorum,' as the house was named, is given in W. H. Turner's 'Records of Oxford,' p. 436, Ox., 1880." Milman, who cites Wikes, 'Chron.,' ad A.D. 1244, in Hist. of the Jews,' book xxv., vol. iii. p. 255, Lond. 1866." Now we of our special grace ratifying the aforesaid grant......Witness myself at Westminster, on the thirteenth day of June in the first year of our reign." (Pat. 1 Hen. V. m. 34 translated.) The letters recited of 14 Hen. IV. are not on the roll of that year. In Exch. 2 B. Ancient Miscell. Dom. Conv., an. 1, 2 Hen. V., the letters patents are recited as the authority for the fragment in the account. reign, annexed the Domus Conversorum to the King Edward III., in the fifty-first year of his office of the Master of the Rolls, which then became known as the Rolls House. The House was rebuilt in 1717. ED. MARSHALL. Will MRS. BOGER kindly supply a reference to the place where Dugdale uses the words "" conversorum et puerorum in reference to the foundation of St. Thomas's Hospital? I can find no such words in Dugdale's account either of St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark, or that of St. Thomas of Acons-now the Mercers' Chapel-in Cheapside. The chapel of the "Domus Conversorum" in Chancery Lane (now the Rolls Chapel), founded by Henry III. in 1233 as a house for the reception of converts from the Jewish faith, was dedicated to St. Mary. On the banishment of the Jews from England in 1290, its " occupation being gone," the building was annexed by Edward III. in 1377 to the newly created office of "Custos Rotulorum or "Master of the Rolls." ALICE FITZ ALAN (8th S. ii. 248, 314, 457, 496; iii. 74).-MR. A. HALL evidently thinks that there was but one Alice Fitz Alan (nat. circ. 1370), the daughter of Richard, the tenth Earl of Arundel, and that she was first contracted to Cardinal Beaufort (before his ordination, of course), taken from him and married to John Cherlton, Lord Powis, and after the latter's death married to Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, who died in 1397. For all of this he quotes Burke, but gives neither book nor page. I find, according to Burke ('Extinct and Dormant Peerages,' ed. 1883, p. 201), that there were two Alice Fitz Alans. The first, daughter to Richard, ninth_Earl of Arundel, married Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent; the second, daughter of Richard, tenth Earl of Arundel, married John Cherlton (ob. s.p.), Lord Powis. From this it seems most likely that it was the second Alice who was probably affianced to Beaufort, and Plymouth. There is one thing which makes the distinction between ghosts and goblins difficult. The goblins and the kobolds have been known as household fairies, and these household fairies are sometimes cauld lad of Hilton" was supposed to be the spirit identified with ghosts. The brownie called "the of a dead servant. In like manner the Roman lares were the souls of dead persons converted into tutelary household deities. There is also the superstition that the ghosts of wicked men become Apropos of wiggin=sea-dog, in a Narrative of a Voyage to the South Seas,' by C. M. Goodridge, of Paignton, Devon, 1837 (p. 51 of the fifth edition), occurs, "The dog seals are named by South seamen, wigs and the female seals are called clap-matches." The same word and sense, I have been told, is found half a century earlier; and during a visit of some American friends, a year or more ago, it 'CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL STRIPT AND came up in conversation that an old seaman near WHIPT' (8th S. iii. 227, 275).—MR. HUMPHREYS'S Providence, R.I., speaks of his sealing expeditions" reply "does not answer my question. I am, of as going after "whige." C. LELY FAMILY (8th S. iii. 48).—The pedigree to which your correspondent refers was undoubtedly that of a Lincolnshire family. One of the Lely family is, to my certain knowledge, a member of the Middle Temple. That gentleman belonged, I believe, to Grantham. P. J. F. GANTILLON. TUMBLERS (8th S. iii. 168, 233).-If "tumblers" or "tumbling glasses," which it was necessary to empty at a draught, were novelties in 1803, they were only a revival of a form of drinking cup which was in use in England many centuries before. Many of the glass cups found in Anglo-Saxon barrows are of a tall, conical form, with a spreading brim and a pointed bottom, incapable of standing upright alone. Examples of this form of cup were in the Mayer Collection at Liverpool. E. VENABLES. GHOST MINERS (8th S. iii. 205, 258).-The frontispiece to the Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable Mr. John Hales, of Eaton-Colledge, &c.' (London, 1688), represents some of the spiritminers at work, or rather at play, for the text assures us (p. 45) that devils. E. YARDLEY. course, aware that Hazlitt speaks of this publication, both in his 'Handbook' and his edition of Warton. It was once entered as among Bishop Tanner's books in the Bodleian Library, but, on going to Oxford to see it, I could not trace it. I and wrote to inquire where I might see a copy. hoped that some other copy might be accessible, CHARLOTTE CARMICHAEL STOPES. FEAST OF ST. MICHAEL (8th S. iii. 209, 273).— The "festum dedicationis St. Michaelis Archangeli" was institued by Pope Gelasius I. in 493. As far as history knows, it has always been held on September 29, which in the year 1396 fell on a Friday. The day is more often than not called only "festum St. Michaelis Archangeli," but is more correctly described as "festum s. Mychaelis Arch. de Septembri" (in a deed of the year 1288), or "festum b. Mychaelis in autumpno" (in a deed of the year 1339), in order to distinguish it from "festum apparitionis (or adventus) beati Michaelis Archangeli" (in deeds of the year 1308) which is celebrated on May 8, and fell on a MonL. L. K. day in 1396. the The May feast of St. Michael, mentioned by MR. C. F. S. WARREN, commemorates a wonderful "G. Agricola, writing De Animantibus Subterraneis,' appearance or vision of the Archangel, which took reports of a certain kind of Spirits that converse in place upon Mount Gargano, in Apulia, when Minerals and much infest those that work in them; and Gelasius I. was Pope. Some time after this was the manner of them when they come is, to seem to busie instituted the feast held on Sept. 29, commonly themselves according to all the custom of Workmen; "The dedication of the they will dig, and cleanse, and melt and sever Metals; called Michaelmas Day. yet when they are gone, the Workmen do not find that famous Church of St. Michael on Mount Gargauo there is anything done. So fares it with a great part of (May 8), gave occasion to the institution of this the multitude, who thrust themselves into the Contro- feast (Sept. 29)," says Alban Butler. The mass versies of the Times; they write Books, move Questions, and office are pretty much the same for both feasts, frame Distinctions, give Solutions, and seem sedulously to do whatever the nature of the business requires; yet the collect being that of Michaelmas Day, as given, if any skilful Work-man in the Lord's Mines shall come in its English dress, in the Book of Common Prayer. There is another feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2. Hence, in Catholic phraseology, October is sometimes called the "month of the angels," as May is "the month of Mary," or November "the month of the dead." GEORGE ANGUS. St. Andrews, N.B. THE ROOT OF SCARCITY (8th S. iii. 268).-The plant referred to is the mangel-worzel, as appears from the pamphlet entitled "An Account of the Culture and Use of the Mangel_Worzel, or Root of Scarcity. Translated from the French of the Abbé de Commerell." In the preface (Aug. 1, 1787), John Coakley Lettsom states, "In the midsummer of 1786 a few seeds were given me, said to be those of a dietetic vegetable, known in France under the name of the Racine de Disette." He tells of his experiments with seeds of this plant, apparently till then unknown in England. The pamphlet is illustrated with a coloured print of the root Beta hybrida. Ogilvie's Dictionary' gives derivation of mangel-worzel from Ger. mangel want, and worzel=root. I. C. GOULD. Loughton. [Many replies to the same effect are acknowledged.] ARTHUR ONSLOW (1691-1768), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (8th S. iii. 167, 258).— Mr. Speaker Onslow is to be reckoned amongst distinguished Wykehamists. He was a Commoner at Winchester College during the years 1706-7, under the head mastership of Dr. Thomas Cheyney. C. W. HOLGATE. FRANCIS, FIFTH DUKE OF LEEDS (8th S. iii. 267). Two comedies written by this nobleman will be found among the MSS. in the British Museum (Add. MS., 27,917). One, in five acts, is entitled 'Don't be too sure,' the other has no title, and is in two acts only. J. J. C. SHAKESPEARE AND MOLIÈRE (8th S. ii. 42, 190, 294, 332, 389, 469; iii. 9, 70, 169).-Your correspondent on this subject did not note one point in MR. HENDERSON's letters. He bases a proposition on the authority of the preface to the 1609 edition of 'Troilus and Cressida,' that "you have here a new play never staled with the stage, never clapperclawed with the palms of the vulgar." To contradict this statement (which was afterwards withdrawn) we find in the 'Stationers' Registers,' Feb. 7, 1603, "that Master Roberts entred for his copy in full court holden this day to print when he hath gotten sufficient authority for yt, The Booke of Troilus and Cressida, as yt is acted by my Lord Chamberlain's men." CHARLOTTE CARMICHAEL STOPES. MR. YARDLEY'S statement as to Shakespeare's "absolute ignorance of Homer, whether in the original or in a translation," can hardly be allowed to pass. It is possibly correct so far as the original is concerned; but he was well acquainted with Chapman's translation of the Iliad' so far as it had been published. The characters of Achilles, of Ajax, of Ulysses, and of Menelaus are, as I have pointed out in my paper in the Transactions of the exact accordance with Chapman's conception of Royal Society of Literature (vol. xv. pt. i.), in them. Even the shocking climax of Achilles's crimes, the cowardly murder of the unarmed Hector, although not literally true to Homer, is amply justified, so far as character is concerned, by the account of the equally cowardly murder of the unarmed Lycaon recorded in the twenty-first book of the Iliad' (11. 35-136 of Chapman's version). The quotation of Aristotle by Hector is only one of those anachronisms with which Shakespeare's plays abound, and has no bearing on the question of his classical knowledge. The Fool in King Lear quotes Merlin, and Richard III. appears in Henry VI.,' pt. ii., when he was actually not born; yet no one would accuse Shakespeare on this account of not having studied the chronicles of his own country. J. FOSTER PALMER. I see that it is Hermia, not Theseus, who refers to Dido: And by that fire that burned the Carthage queen, When the false Trojan under sail was seen. But my oversight is of no importance, since the anachronism is the same in the mouth of Hermia as it would have been in that of Theseus. In 'Troilus and Cressida' the Greek chiefs make no reference whatever to their own previous exploits tions Boreas, Perseus, and such well-known or their families. The Shakspearian Nestor menmythical personages, but he never refers to the adventures of his youth, as the Homeric Nestor does. Shakspeare was in the habit of using all his knowledge, and he sometimes goes much out of his way to introduce a very small amount of erudition. In Timon of Athens,' Timon thus expresses himself : They say, my lords, that ira furor brevis est, of Latin quoted, and put into the mouth of a them: "They have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps." Certainly they got had some knowledge of the Latin language; but nothing but the scraps. It is clear that Shakspeare that knowledge was slight; and his knowledge of Latin literature was limited. Of the Greek language and literature he seems to have known next to nothing. E. YARDLEY. 66 KEARNEY (8th S. iii. 188, 292).-NOMAD wants to know the precise point of my query, and states that one work says that a Kearney was Secretary of State to James II., and that his grandson was created a Count. The statement to which I called attention was that a certain "Countess" of the name, in an interview, explained that a title created for the "Secretary of State's" son had been recently "revived." NOMAD implies that this title, presumably a French title, was revived " by the Pope; but he refers to Burke's Peerage' and says that the title was "revived' by letters patent, 1868." Under "Foreign Titles of Nobility" in Burke's Peerage' I find a Roman Count of the name of Kearney, and the statement that John Kearney was Secretary of State to James II., which is precisely the first point of my query, I asked what was known of this Secretaryship of State, naming another person who I thought held the office. As far as I make out the pedigree in Burke's Peerage,' the present Papal count is not descended from the French count, son of the Secretary of State, but from his brother; nor is the present Papal count the eldest representative of the family of the Secretary of State. It is difficult, therefore, to see why the title should have been revived in favour of one who, although a descendant, is not the representative of the family. Is the bearing in this country of Papal titles usual? This was the second point of my query. MR. WALFORD as well as NOMAD take me to task for naming another case, which was the only one which occurred to me at the moment, and MR. WALFORD adds that the Countess Tasker was not the keeper of a Roman Catholic school at Brook Green. I may, of course, have been wrong, but I had before me an old letter in which the writer stated that she had been at Miss Tasker's school at Brook Green, from which I, perhaps too hastily, drew the conclusion that Countess Tasker who lived at Brook Green was the keeper of the school. A. I. K. Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. The Works of Sir John Vanbrugh. Edited by W. C. Ward. 2 vols. (Lawrence & Bullen.) THE appearance of a handsome library edition of Vanbrugh's comedies is a gratifying circumstance to the student of the drama, who has had hitherto to peruse them in Moxon's somewhat cumbrous edition of the Restoration dramatists, or in last century duodecimos, wretched in paper and type and not too easily accessible. It is true that the perusal of these works is amusing rather than edifying. Very far are we from commending them to general reading. A lady would soon close volumes that are one long and savage libel on her sex, and men, even, who have what Macaulay says is requisite, a robust and not a valetudinarian virtue, find difficult Sometimes the task of repressing indignation or disgust. Vanbrugh is as great an offender as any of his associates, and came in for a damaging assault in the famous Collier controversy. We know no play of the epoch more hopelessly cynical and outspoken than The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger,' and others of his works come little behind this in indelicacy. The question then arises how far wit and characterization are to be allowed to compensate for the absence of decency. On this and other subjects different opinions will always be enterIn the days when the Parliament and the tained. Sorbonne were busy destroying by fire or sword the Huguenots, much of the highest thought of the age put on an "antic disposition," and hid gems of highest value in the filth of the cloaca. In periods such as those of the Restoration, of the Regency of Orleans, and of the outbreak of the French Revolution men reflected in the historian, the moralist, and other students are these ribald writings the tone of those in power. Priceless to productions, and the world has decided that they shall be preserved. Attempts to suppress Cervantes, Rabelais, and other writers have been no more successful than the dramas, then, we are grateful that they should come others to bowdlerize Shakspeare. While we are to have in a guise so attractive as that of all the publications of Messrs. Lawrence & Bullen and under editorial supervision so competent as that of Mr. Ward, whose prefaces, annotations, and explanations are worthy of highest praise. The Early History of Coffee Houses in England. By Edward Forbes Robinson, B.A. (Kegan Paul & Co.) MR. ROBINSON has hit upon an antiquarian subject of great freshness and interest. Histories of cabarets and with little recognition. Yet in the coffee house was the taverns we have, but the coffee house has hitherto met foundation of the club, one of the most interesting and potent of our social developments. The theme has, indeed. as is shown, historic value. The introduction of coffee into various countries, the difficulties that attended its spread, and the theological prejudices it awoke form the subject of some curious chapters; and there are at the close a bibliography of books on coffee and an appendix of coffee-house tokens. Reproductions of old engravings, broadsides, &c., add greatly to the attractions of a brightly written and delightful volume. The Puritan in Holland, England, and America: an Introduction to American History. By Douglas CampMR. CAMPBELL is evidently a discursive reader, who has bell. 2 vols. (Osgood, McIlvaine & Co.) pondered on the very miscellaneous stores of facts which he has collected in his note-books. His book is pleasant reading, and as we follow his steps we cannot help accumulating much new knowledge. The fault of the book is that its author has aimed at far too much, and that he has not successfully distinguished between the value of the authorities he has used. The history of Puritanism bas a large literature, which is still growing rapidly, but a really good history of that movement which may be said to have sprung from the left wing of the Reformation and to have attained its zenith, so far as this country is concerned, by the battle of Naseby, has yet to be written. Political and religious Puritanism are constantly treated of as if they were identical. This is a mistake which has led to great confusion. Political Puritanism died with the fall of the Commonwealth, for the Protestant revolt which placed King William III. on the English throne had hardly anything in common with that movement which brought Laud and Charles I. upon the scaffold. Unequal as Mr. Campbell's book is, we are grateful to him for having produced it. The parts which relate to the Netherlands and America are, in our opinion, by far the most successful portions of the work. |